


The Demon Who Loved

by Star_Going_Supernova



Series: Inky Eyes, Golden Heart [4]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Child Abuse, Demon Deals, Demon Summoning, Fluff, Gen, Hell, Henry is such a nice tater tot, Non-Graphic Animal Injuries, Threats of torture, Trauma, demon!Henry, either way demons aren't nice to their own children, fear him, is it child abuse when they're demons?, mentions of torture, not religiously accurate, truly an adorable bean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 15:29:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13573491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: Demons are incapable of love. Right?Or; the story of the journey Henry embarked on to leave hell behind in favor of earth and everything it had to offer.





	The Demon Who Loved

**Author's Note:**

> Good golly, this turned out about 4,000 words longer than I initially thought it’d be, but here it is, guys: Henry’s long-promised backstory! There is a _lot_ of information in this, both about Henry and demons in general, that I hope will answer some questions you guys have had. There’s also a fair amount of stuff in here that will make appearances in future stories.

Deep in the depths of hell, Kareiel was born. Or, well, he wasn’t Kareiel right away, that’s not how it worked. Newborn demons were immediately given to a caretaker— demons who were either slightly less cruel than others, or had become defective in some way, with damaged auras or curses counting down their lives; humans were a weak species, but some were distressingly clever with magick— and assigned a number until they were old enough to be set loose in the crystal caves. 

If they managed to survive the horrors in there, they would find a crystal that would reveal to them their name according to who they were. Names had meaning, after all, but demons typically didn’t care about those. 

Either way, Kareiel finished his time as #307948 and found his crystal after having his arm chomped off by a three-headed hellhound— it’d grow back, but he’d probably be punished for his carelessness first— and he was given his name: Kareiel. 

He turned and left, a mere five cycles old, completed his final task, and went into the world with all the cruelty he’d been taught.

Within a human’s month of popping around places and seeking people willing to make deals, he received his first soul. 

And, as all demons did, Kareiel devoured it. Ate it up like a delicacy, and felt the next few cycles of his life become assured by the nutritional value within the human soul. And then, as all demons did, he became corrupted, his aura tainted, and he was cast from the face of the earth back into the depths of hell, where he could never leave unless he was answering a summons or had acquired a vessel.

It was a system as cruel as them. Demons needed to eat souls to live— there was a reason, though few bothered to understand it; most merely accepted that to abstain was to die— yet eating souls cursed them to hell for the rest of their lives. There was no going back, once you’d tasted one. The earth became a forbidden land, only accessible through precise means. 

Not that anyone really cared. What sort of demon would ever want to walk among humans, after all? 

So Kareiel lived in hell with the rest of his kind, and when the time came, he and another demon, Miraza, had a child. Kareiel didn’t love Miraza, nor did she love him, for demons were incapable of love. 

Just as every other newborn, their child was given to a caretaker to be raised, and they never thought of their son again. This was normal, expected. Attachment and caring had no place in a demon’s life.

Their son, however, well… he’d become a bit of a different story. 

• • • • • 

#363599 wandered through the crystal caves, listening to the others as they screeched and scurried and got into fights with monsters and each other. He trailed his fingers along the wall, wondering what sunlight felt like. 

They were taught by their caretakers about earth and the ways of the human’s world, and while the rest of the demons his age had reacted as they were meant to— with screams and snarls and hatred, so much hatred— #363599 had instead wanted to know it for himself. There was something deep inside him, something crying out for answers. Why were they supposed to hurt humans? What made humans so deserving of their hatred? Wouldn’t they be happier to stay on earth than be cursed back into hell? Humans sure seemed happier.

He only ever made the mistake of asking questions like that once. His caretaker— an old, perpetually frowning demon, whose aura had been partially bound by a human years ago— had wrenched his head back by his slowly growing horns and raked her claws down his cheek and neck, screaming all the while about how every human was deserving of death. 

He hadn’t asked again, especially since she prevented the gouges from healing for months, but he didn’t let go of his curiosity in his heart. 

Sunlight was only one of the many things that he ached to see for himself. Humans had a moon and many stars to light their darkness, whereas demons had hellfire that ate through their flesh like acid. Humans had food, and beds, and families. Demons only needed to consume souls, and their ways of resting were far from comfortable. 

And families. He only had his caretaker. He didn’t know his parents’ names, or if he had any siblings. The loneliness didn’t seem to be something that anyone else felt, not as they ripped limbs from limbs and cackled as they sunk their claws into each other’s necks. 

Fighting was supposed to be the only form of contact they needed.

#363599 turned a corner and, without having encountered a single danger as he traversed the maze within the caves, found a crystal. It glowed blue at him in intervals, inviting him closer.

“Hello,” he said as he put his hands on the smooth surface. 

The crystal vibrated and flashed different colors rapidly at him. He’d never heard of that happening before.

“Are you all right?” he asked. Maybe he shouldn’t use this one. Could the crystals even be broken or hurt?

It warmed beneath his touch. 

“Will you name me, please?” He knew that _please_ was a human word, and that demons shouldn’t use it or they’d be seen as weak, but it seemed only right when this crystal had to sit all by its lonesome in this dark and scary cave, only to name demons over and over and never be thanked for its efforts.

The light dulled for a moment, as he expected it to, before growing so bright, he had to squint just to look at it. Yet another thing he’d never heard of. Without once losing its intensity, the crystal changed to a dark blue and purple, dotted with little white pinpricks. In swirling golden cursive, #363599 watched as his name was written for the first time. 

Aztrayos was born. 

The letters carved themselves into his heart, and he fell in love with the sound of them together, and with the look of their pretty lines. It was perfect.

“Thank you. What does it mean?”

Around his name, the little dots in the crystal flared, and Aztrayos knew what it meant as surely as if someone had whispered the answer in his ear.

What better name for a demon who dreamt of the stars, than one taken from a legendary god of the earthly heavens himself? 

• • • • • 

“You’ve all heard of the Duels before, but you brats are going to hear about the rules one more time. You go down into the abyss alone, weaponless save for whatever is physically attached to your body— fangs, claws, whatever power you inherited if you’ve managed to discover it— where you will be approached by an abomination of your caretaker’s choosing,” the demon at the podium called out over the crowd of restless five-cycles-old children. This would be their final test before reaching their sixth cycle, the age where they’d be released from their caretakers to do as they pleased. 

At that last bit, a number of Aztrayos’s fellow demons nearby— allowing him a wide berth to avoid catching his freakishness— snickered in his direction. It was no secret that his caretaker hated him more than caretakers usually hated their charges. She’d pick something horrendous for him to battle, increasing the likelihood of him dying gruesomely. 

Aztrayos sighed. He was used to it by now, honestly. 

“Once you’re in the abyss,” the announcer continued, “there’s only one rule: kill or be killed. The lucky dozen with the shortest times will be presented to our lord at the celebration tonight. I’ll begin calling names now, and if you miss yours, you’ll be summarily executed.”

It wasn’t long before he reached Aztrayos.

“In the seventh chamber of the abyss, Aztrayos will be Dueling—” he had to pause to swallow his laughter— “a ragornorak.”

The crowd burst into gleeful whispers about how the freak was about to be ripped limb from limb by a ragornorak. Aztrayos refused to outwardly react. He’d deny them the satisfaction of seeing him afraid, no matter what. 

When his time came, he ignored the jeers of every demon in his vicinity as they parted to let him walk to his doom. His caretaker sneered at him before giving him a violent shove into the seventh chamber. The door slammed shut behind him, leaving Aztrayos in the pitch black of hell’s abyss. 

A low growl erupted from above him. Great. It was already on the ceiling. 

• • • • • 

“The little brat won’t last long,” Aztrayos’s crone of a caretaker told a group of other grown demons. “If he’s lucky, and he so rarely is, it’ll bite his head off first. Less painful, I hear, to be ingested after decapitation.”

Her listeners laughed delightedly as the timer above his chamber ticked up, passing one minute. 

“If _I’m_ lucky, though, it’ll sting him first, so he’ll be in excruciating pain as it dissolves his flesh before starting to ingest him.” 

A boom and crash interrupted her chortles, and everyone in the area turned just in time to watch the door to Aztrayos’s chamber slam open. Glaring at his caretaker, Aztrayos stepped out into the light and threw down one of the ragornorak’s largest fore-fangs. 

“You won’t find much else left of it,” he said, panting heavily, and they stared at the timer above his head, steadily flashing his time.

**1.16**

• • • • • 

Aztrayos didn’t much like being one of the dozen lined up on a stage to be presented to their lord. He’d far prefer be somewhere private, where he could allow himself to shake and cry as the memory of the ragornorak kept playing through his head. 

_Don’t let them see,_ he told himself. _Don’t let them see you be weak._  

He was standing somewhere in the middle of the lineup, and he stared straight out and slightly up, so he wouldn’t have to see all the venomous glares he could almost feel being leveled his way. Absently, he wondered if any of the demons in the crowd were his parents. Anyone was welcome to come to this event, and most did if only to catch a glimpse of their elusive lord. 

If past celebrations were any indication, there was bound to be some sort of entertainment, a young demon or aid getting theirs handed to them by their lord, for any number of reasons. Cockiness, disrespect, simply for fun.

Aztrayos knew there was probably a large number of beings hoping it’d be him this cycle. He often hated the reputation he seemed to have developed, just as much as he wondered how he’d gotten it in the first place. Then again, a child being perpetually curious about humans like he had proved to be was bound to stand out.

He didn’t react as the Devil himself finally reached him. His aid, a demon punishably wearing a tight collar around his neck, read off his stats.

“Aztrayos, one minute and sixteen seconds—”

The Devil scoffed and turned away, ready to move on. “Someone went easy on him,” he interrupted the quivering demon at his side. 

“—ragornorak.”

Mid-step, the Devil froze. The aid winced, cowering behind his notes. 

“What did you just say?” he asked, his voice deceptively soft. 

With tears welling up in his eyes, the aid repeated, “One minute and sixteen seconds, ragornorak, my lord.” He bowed low and stayed bent. 

The Devil stepped back in front of Aztrayos. He looked down at him, frowning. Aztrayos focused on a spot over his shoulder. “You? A ragornorak?” 

“Yes.” Part of Aztrayos wanted to fall to his knees and sing the praises of his lord. The quietly angry part of him, though, the part that wanted nothing more than to get out of hell once and for all, the part that refused to let anyone crush who he was— that part screamed about how he’d never give anyone down here more than he already had. He’d kneel for no one, not even the Devil.

Imagine his surprise, then, when the Devil fell to one knee to stare him dead in the eye. “A runt like you,” he said, “killed an abomination like that, in less than a minute and a half. _How?_ ” 

As if Aztrayos was going to tell him the truth. “Got lucky, I guess.” 

The Devil slowly shook his head, “No, I don’t think so. No one gets _lucky_ against a ragornorak. A pint-size like you, though— you probably outsmarted it. That’s good,” he said, drawing the sound out, “if you can outsmart a creature like that, then you’ll have no trouble tricking a human into giving you their soul.” 

Aztrayos wouldn’t ever be able to say what prompted him to respond. Had he remained silent, the Devil would’ve stood up and moved on to the next victor, and probably would’ve completely forgotten about the little runt at the Dueling celebration. 

But no, Aztrayos just _had_ to go and say, “I won’t.” 

In the midst of preparing to rise, the Devil paused. “Won’t what?” 

“Take a human’s soul.” 

The crowd beyond the stage, silent up until then, burst into laughter. With sharp eyes, the Devil stared at him, and this time, Aztrayos wasn’t able to look away. 

It was disconcerting, he thought, how the most wicked and cruel creature of all could look so kind. Unlike most demons, especially the other Ancients like the Devil, he didn’t look his age in any way, shape, or form. If it weren’t for the horns curling out of the corners of his forehead and the wings folded against his back, he’d look like a normal, handsome human man. 

The Devil’s hand shot up, and the crowd instantly fell silent. 

Very slowly, he repeated Aztrayos’s words, “You won’t take a human’s soul.” Watching him carefully, the Devil asked, “Why not?”

It was a dangerous answer. It was an indescribably dangerous answer. “Because I don’t hate humans.” 

The Devil leaned back a bit. “What’s not to hate? Besides, you’ll die a slow and painful death if you don’t.”

The fury Aztrayos constantly concealed burned forth at the Devil’s words. “I’d rather die on earth than live in hell.”

Faster than a blink, the Devil’s hand shot forward and grasped Aztrayos’s chin, pulling him closer. Too late, Aztrayos realized he could feel his eyes heating up with their electric-blue power, like liquid lightning. He yanked it back, locking it away, but he knew— he hadn’t been fast enough. 

“So that’s how…” the Devil said, trailing off. With his free hand, he traced the skin around Aztrayos’s eyes. “Bring it back, little one. Show me your fire.” 

That was a command, no matter how quietly, even gently, it’d been said. Knowing better than to disobey— especially with claws so close to his eyes— Aztrayos let the slightest bit leak out, just enough for his pupils and irises to fade and merge with the bright white of his scleras. Something powerful crackled along the edges, threatening to burn the Devil’s fingers.

“The little one’s got secrets,” he whispered, too quietly for even the front row of the crowd to hear. “Tell me, Aztrayos— you’d rebel against the ways you’ve been taught, you’d live among the mortals despite what you’ve been told, you’d reject our ways?”

“Yes,” Aztrayos said, as fiercely as he dared. 

And then the Devil did a peculiar thing: he grinned, wide and genuine and lacking any malice. “Very well. But know this, little one—” he dropped his hands from Aztrayos’s face and leaned back a bit, still speaking softly— “no matter how much you run from your demonic nature, you will spend the rest of your short life being more like me than any other demon alive.” He looked back and forth between Aztrayos’s eyes. “But then, I suppose you’re already like me in other ways, aren’t you.” 

The Devil stood, and gave him a final nod. “Disrespectful little thing, too,” he said to himself. “Oh, child. We would’ve been great.” Then, louder so the entire assemblage could hear, the Devil said, “Farewell, Aztrayos. I think I will remember you— you, the demon that wasn’t.”

• • • • •

Somehow, having stood eye-to-eye with the Devil made the other demons his age slightly less cruel towards him— though that may also have had something to do with how he killed a ragornorak in a minute and sixteen seconds. They weren’t nice by any stretch of the imagination, but for his last few nights in hell, he didn’t find any scorpions in his bed, or spells to attract hellhounds drawn on his toga, and no one tried to pluck even a single feather from his wings. 

And then it was over. He was released from his caretaker without ceremony, and with a quick twist on his heel, he was on earth. 

For the first time in his life, Aztrayos felt the warmth of the sun on his bare arms, and he smelt the fresh breeze as it blew through his hair, and the slightly muffled sounds of screaming from the chasm— very different from the abyss, don’t get those two mixed up— were replaced by the distant sounds of birds chirping.

In the blink of an eye, Aztrayos fell in love. What he’d told the Devil was true: he’d rather live a drastically shorter life on earth than a near immortal one in hell. He’d die here before eating a human’s soul. Of that, he had no doubt.

Until then, he’d enjoy what earth had to offer, and he knew he’d love every moment of it.

• • • • •

“You… are not what I was expecting.”

Aztrayos gave the elderly man in front of him, sitting in a wheelchair, a little smile. For all that this was his first time answering a summoning, he wasn’t afraid or anxious. 

“That’s probably a good thing, sir. I don’t think you would’ve liked what you were expecting.”

The elderly man chuckled. “No, I suppose you’re right.” He lifted one hand from the wheelchair’s arm. It was trembling. “Bit nervous, you see.” 

At seven cycles— years, he had to remember that humans called them years— old, he’d seen a lot of earth in his time since leaving hell. Beautiful, amazing things. People here were so different from demons, and he adored them for it. There was still cruelty, of course there was, but those who practiced it made such a small number compared to the rest of the population. 

There were times when he’d struggled— facing certain humans of a particular monstrosity— to resist attacking them with his powers. He liked to help, he’d realized that early on, but it wasn’t his right to be judge, jury, and executioner. Naturally, if he caught one of the human monsters in the act, that was a bit of a different story.

Like the two men who’d jumped a girl the other night and dragged her into an alley, both of them positively stinking of lust to his aura. The girl hadn’t seen who had come to her rescue, and that suited Aztrayos just fine. 

But just because he had a year of experience under his belt didn’t mean he wasn’t still finding amazing things. For example, the complex looking telescope positioned over by the window of the elderly man’s study. 

It hadn’t surprised him one bit to discover he had a particular fondness of stars. 

The summoning circle’s weak barrier collapsed the moment he touched it as he stepped over the outer lines. Aztrayos was already standing by the telescope when he registered the man’s shocked gasp.

He glanced over his shoulder. The poor human was pale and shaking, staring at him in terrified silence. Oops.

“Sorry,” he said, turning back. Scuffing his shoe on the hardwood floor, he gestured back at the circle. “If it makes you feel safer, I can stay in there.” 

After several seconds of silence, the man hesitantly said, “All the books made it sound like you would be trapped.”

“Most demons, yes. I mean, for that to work, a demon has to have taken a human soul in a deal, and I… I haven’t. I don’t want to. Since I’m not corrupted, things like that don’t affect me.” 

The man wheeled a bit closer to Aztrayos. “I see,” he said, “and you don’t want my soul? No matter what I ask for?”

“No!” Aztrayos said, cringing away. “Human souls are—” he leaned towards the man and whispered— “we eat them, you see. And that doesn’t sound nice at all.” 

“That does sound rather dreadful.” The man nodded at the telescope. “Would you like to try it out?” 

Bouncing on his toes, Aztrayos beamed. “Yes, please.”

Nearly two hours later, after having been given a tutorial in how to use the wonderful device, Aztrayos turned to the man— who’d introduced himself as Richard— and said, “What did you want to make a deal for?”

“My legs,” Richard told him. “I can’t walk any more. I wouldn’t mind so much, but my wife is going to leave the hospital tomorrow, and— and I wanted to be able to dance with her. She’s been gone a long time, and I’ve missed her greatly.” 

“Okay,” Aztrayos said, promptly sitting down on the ground and reaching for his magick.

“Wait, what about making a deal?”

“Oh, yeah. Um, how about you just give me something that means a lot to you, all right?” Aztrayos reached up and shook Richard’s hand. “There we go.”

Healing magick didn’t come naturally to demons, but being as fond of animals as he’d discovered he was, Aztrayos had gotten some good practice in since he came to earth. Though he was still a bit clumsy with the more delicate parts, by the time he was done, he was rather proud of his work. 

“How’s that feel?” he asked Richard. 

The man shakily pushed himself to his feet. He didn’t falter as he stumbled around, laughing and crying in joy. 

“Thank you,” he gasped, grabbing Aztrayos for a hug. “Thank you. I— it’s not enough,” he said, pulling a black case down from a bookshelf, “but I’d like you to have this. It’s been passed down in my family for a long time, and I have no son or daughter of my own to give it to.”

Aztrayos accepted it, popping the lid open to reveal a gorgeous violin. With bright eyes, he listened as Richard told him the story behind it, the first story Aztrayos was ever told.

And he fell in love with the imaginative way the mind worked. 

• • • • •

He wasn’t there when it happened, and for that he was grateful. It was bad enough to come across the broken form of a dog on the side of the road, but even he, a demon, would’ve balked if he’d seen the hit-and-run occur. 

Aztrayos cautiously leaned over the dog— a large, male German Shepherd, full grown but not yet old— and found to his surprise that the poor thing was still alive.

Wouldn’t be for much longer though, not if his aura was reading the animal’s dying soul right. 

There was a collar around his neck. Aztrayos remembered the first time he’d seen a collar on a pet— it’d greatly distressed him until he found out they were for the animals’ own safety, bearing names and addresses and generally acting as a sign that the pet in question had a home and was loved. 

He slowly inched around the dog until he was near his head. “Hello,” he said, sitting down on the ground. He carefully shifted into his half-form, so his veins glowed just enough to provide some light in the growing dark. The dog whimpered.

Sending out a tendril of his aura, Aztrayos soothed the dog’s pain until it relaxed a bit. He held his hand in front of his nose for him to sniff, and once he received approval, he carefully reached for the tag on the front of the collar.

“Henry,” Aztrayos read off it. “That’s a nice name.” He leaned down until he could see his own reflection in his new friend’s eyes. “I’m gonna help you, Henry, don’t worry.”

With a little whine, Henry shifted slightly, and Aztrayos got to work. He took his time patching the poor dog up. While he manipulated his aura to do as he wanted, he kept up a constant stream of conversation in an effort to distract Henry from the pain.

Eventually, sometime around when Aztrayos started fusing a number of cracks in the dog’s skull, his thoughts drifted onto a topic that he normally tried to avoid.

“There are a lot of different creatures in the universe, and demons aren’t even the scariest. There are angels, Celestials, eldritch horrors, abominations, the Holy Wanderers of the Seventh Sun, demi-mortals— no one likes talking about them, though— soul-walkers, and all sorts of different kinds of fae, but they don’t get along with demons, really. And we’re all connected in some way. Like, angels and demons are technically almost exactly the same, and Celestials are sort of a combination of them, but in space. The Holy Wanderers of the Seventh Sun don’t really have physical bodies, but they’re not too bad as long as you don’t break the Universal Directives.”

He gave Henry a wide-eyed look. “They’ll erase you from existence if you break one of the Universal Directives.” Aztrayos shrugged. “But they’re also the ones who gave me an invitation to the Christmas celebration at the Council for Cross-Dimensional Creatures of Unnatural Origins, so I like them. I made a new friend there, too!”

Aztrayos went quiet for a minute as he delicately fixed up Henry’s brain. “Do you know why angels don’t come to earth?” he asked. 

Henry whuffed. 

“Well, other than how they just don’t care about humans, it’s ’cause they can’t. Tainted souls aren’t allowed to look upon an angel and live, because angels’ souls are on the outside of their bodies. Humans are tainted. Demons and abominations are corrupted. Even animals, like you, wouldn’t be able to stand it.” He stroked a hand down Henry’s back, the minor damage done to his spine healing in the wake of his fingers. 

“I didn’t understand why I was different for a long time. But the crystals in hell’s caves will answer any question if you ask nicely enough. I went looking, and I found the answer. It shouldn’t be possible, but generations ago, there was an angel in my ancestry. Too far back for anyone to remember, but it was there. Somehow, a little piece of them made it all the way to me.” Aztrayos sat back. “There,” he said, smiling, “you’re all better.”

Bouncing to his feet, Henry spun in a quick circle before licking at Aztrayos’s face. He laughed and let himself be pushed onto his back. Henry settled quite contentedly on top of him. He nudged at Aztrayos’s chin and barked, short and soft.

“No, I’m not part angel. That’s not how it works. I’m not one of _them_. But even just the slightest bit… it made me different. It’s like a disease, I guess— it got worse as I got older. I don’t have a soul the way angels and humans do, but the closest thing to it is in my eyes. If I’m not careful, any tainted creature who sees them will die, just like with an angel.” He sighed and scratched behind Henry’s ears.

“If I was a normal demon, they wouldn’t work. If I was tainted, the power would’ve gone away like how everyone else loses the true strength of their abilities. But I’m not corrupted, since I’ve never eaten a human soul. The failsafe that weakens demons doesn’t work on me.” 

His friend barked several times before standing. 

“Kinda. Especially when I was younger. I didn’t really know better then. But now… no. No, I’m happy with the way I am. And you’re right, we should find your home. It’s going to start raining soon, and teleporting after fixing you up so much sounds like a stupid idea. Do you know where you live?”

Henry pawed at the ground before starting to trot down the street, slowing once Aztrayos caught up to him. Side by side, they walked through the night, and when the sky opened above them with a resound crack of thunder, Aztrayos shook his wings free and curved one out to the side to provide Henry with shelter from the downpour. 

As soon as they turned down a particular street of an unremarkable neighborhood, Aztrayos knew that their destination was close by. One of these houses held a highly distressed family, children’s souls crying out in mourning and parents who radiated false, broken calm. They got closer and closer, Henry’s tail wagging in obvious happiness at almost being home. 

Turning to walk towards the front door of the house that reeked of loss, Aztrayos said, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about me.” 

Henry stopped and tilted his head up at him, giving Aztrayos a blatant _you’re an idiot_ look. 

He laughed. “Hey, you never know! Demons can obviously understand you, and what if one overhears you telling a friend about me?” 

Dogs couldn’t roll their eyes in the same manner that humans could, but Aztrayos didn’t need to see the movement to feel the sentiment. 

“Oh, shut up,” he muttered, knocking on the front door. His wings and other non-human traits vanished. 

A moment later, a woman pulled it open, immediately going wide-eyed at the sight of a soaking wet eight-year-old standing in the pouring rain, in the dark. 

“What—” she started to ask, only for her wandering gaze to catch on the dog at Aztrayos’s side. Within moments, her husband and children had joined her in the hall, and Henry leapt forward into the midst of his family with a joyful bark.

The woman seemed to remember their visitor after a few long seconds of joining the rest of her family in welcoming Henry home. 

“Thank you, thank you so much for bringing him back. He’s been missing all day, and he’s never wandered away before like that. Where did you find him?” she asked. 

Since he couldn’t very well explain why their pet was completely fine, Aztrayos told a half-truth. “I found him beside the road. He was almost hit by a car.”

The children gasped. Aztrayos didn’t necessarily want to scare them, but if a reminder of the dangers out there for loose dogs kept them diligent, then he didn’t mind so much. Better an _almost hit_ than _was hit_.

He didn’t wait after that for a response or anything. Aztrayos just turned to head back down the front walk in the rain, but before he could make it far, a loud bark from right behind him made him stop. Henry bounded around him and jumped, placing his front paws on Aztrayos’s shoulders to slobber on his face. 

Laughing, his aura swamped with gratitude, Aztrayos gave Henry a big hug. “You’re the first creature I’ve ever told about me like that, and I feel better for it.” He pulled back to look into the dog’s eyes. “I’ll never forget you, Henry.” 

• • • • •

Two months later, a kind woman running the little bakery Aztrayos was eating breakfast at sat down across from him. It was between the morning rush and the late morning rush, so he was the only customer, and he didn’t mind the company— even though he knew she was worried about him being either homeless or a runaway.

Technically, he was both, but neither seemed that important considering he was also a demon. 

At some point as they spoke, she asked for his name. He couldn’t very well tell the truth, and the last time someone had asked for his name had been Richard. Names had power, and Aztrayos kept his close. Richard had understood. 

In a worse world, someone who didn’t like Aztrayos would spread his name and summoning symbols around the earth. Luckily, until a demon spoke their name in front of a human themself, no one would be able to truly _hear_ it. Humans who knew it, though, could spread it easily. Not that any demon would ever trust a human with their name, except the most powerful and the Ancients who wanted fame and followers. 

His mind momentarily blanked at the question, but then, as if it had just been waiting for the right moment to burst out of him, he told her, “I’m Henry.” 

And something in him burned warmly at how right it sounded.

• • • • • 

The consequences to not devouring a human soul began to catch up to Henry— who’d long since decided he liked his new name just as much as his original— towards the end of his ninth year. Nothing too bad yet, just a bit of sluggishness, and teleporting had become a bit trickier, but, well… it could only get worse. Not a very optimist situation, honestly.

Knowing that he was going to die within a year or two didn’t help. Was this how humans felt, with their days as numbered as they were? 

Of course, that was assuming he died a natural death from starvation in the first place. 

It was just his luck that he stumbled into land owned by a cult that was one big summoning circle. Which meant demons. A lot of them. Even worse, a number of them knew who he was.

Naturally, they didn’t like him. And if they didn’t know him, that didn’t matter. Demons were cruel, after all, bullies with a bit more power to their punch than ordinary humans. 

So that’s how Henry found himself being dragged in his halfway transformation through some trees by laughing demons. His weakened state combined with the surprise attack they’d launched on him left him defenseless.

This was bad. This was very very bad. 

“You’re joking!” one of them cried. “You’re tellin’ me this runt beat a ragornorak? Look at him, he can barely even stand.”

“Had to’ve been a hoax!” 

“Rigged, probably.” 

“So we might have a little cheater on our hands?” Someone yanked Henry’s head up by his hair. “Did you lie, pipsqueak? Don’t ya know what they say about liars?” He leaned close and snarled into Henry’s ear, “They never prosper!”

The others howled with laugher. If Henry’s aura wasn’t still trying to sort itself out and if his ears weren’t ringing something awful, he’d have commented on how that wasn’t even a proper joke, much less funny. 

“Cut out his tongue so he can’t lie again!” a demon to his left cried. 

“Bite his fingers and toes off.” 

“Rip his feathers out one by one!” a different one pawed at his shoulder blades. 

A blade tapped against his cheek. “We should skin him. That’s what humans do with their worthless kills, ain’t it?” 

Distantly, someone called, “They’re bringing up a hydra! Let him face that and feel its acid spit!”

The group, growing increasingly larger, laughed. And then, one last suggestion came from directly behind Henry.

“Gouge his eyes!”

His eyes. _His eyes_. 

He didn’t like using the power contained within them, since he was always felt a sense of teetering on the precipice of control, like if they burned one second too long, they’d keep burning forever and ever. But desperate times called for desperate measures. 

There was no way, no how Henry was going out like this. He still had time, and so much of earth to explore. 

“Let me go,” he whispered. He was fair, after all. 

But when they didn’t, Henry didn’t have even an ounce of guilt when he pushed his all into the tiny space behind his eyelids and said, “Suit yourself.” 

He looked at them, and they looked back. Shining like a star, the light crackled electric and merciless. They fell, burned up inside and out, destroyed beyond any hope of salvation. And since they just kept coming, Henry just kept staring. 

A roar ripped through the trees, echoed over and over by dozens of identical heads. The demons guiding the hydra withered and died. 

The idiots hadn’t put any sort of restraints on it, which meant the abomination was free to roam wherever it desired. And Henry couldn’t have that. 

Some demons charged him. Others fled. He advanced, limping and bleeding, but more than that— he felt like he himself was dying. 

Screeching horribly, the hydra lumbered towards him. The heads began to shrivel up as more slowly took notice of him.

**Stop,** his aura whispered. **Because if you don’t now, you might never again.**

But he couldn’t. Not while there were still heads on the hydra. It’d mean death for him and countless others. Humans wouldn’t be able to stop it, and demons wouldn’t care to.

It got closer and closer, its jaws snapping at him with teeth trickling acid from their jagged tips. 

Henry screamed as the flesh around his eyes began to scorch from the sheer power he was pouring out of them.

Tears trickled down his cheeks as the light illuminating the forest grew and grew until something inside him snapped. 

The hydra screeched as it fully burnt away to ash, and the moment it was gone, Henry collapsed to the ground, broken. 

He curled up in a little ball, sobbing, with his eyes clenched shut. He couldn’t turn them off. He couldn’t turn them off. 

He couldn’t turn them off. 

_I can’t turn them off._

_Help me, please._

_I can’t— I can’t._

_I can’t._

_…_

_…_

_…_

_I_ **_will._ **

• • • • • 

Henry turned ten. He kept dying. 

Before, he used to find time to spend in his halfway form, but now, he tried to avoid using it as much as possible. He spent the long days after killing the hydra alone, unable to be around humans with the skin of his face so badly damaged. 

A terrible and possibly misguided sense of guilt prevented him from trying to heal it on his own. Memories of being made to suffer as punishment for some wrongdoing haunted his dreams, and no matter how much he tried to ignore them, he couldn’t. 

With his aura splintered in the way it was now, he truly had no control over the power in his eyes. In anything other than his human form, they crackled and burned and threatened to kill anyone and anything that looked upon them. He wouldn’t be able to answer summonings anymore, though— it didn’t really matter did it?

By the time he turned eleven, he knew he’d be dead.

Months passed, and while his face healed and he eventually managed to force himself to erase the horrid scars that covered his cheeks and the bridge of his nose and the lowest bits of his forehead, he didn’t feel better.

Henry loved earth, and he mostly loved the humans that walked upon it. And even as scared of dying as he was, he’d keep his promise: he would die before taking and devouring a human soul. Living in hell wouldn’t be worth it, not even a little. 

Demons didn’t know their exact birthdays— that was a human concept, really. Newborns were lumped into a group at the beginning of a cycle, so in reality, everyone his age had their birthdays spread across the months of their particular cycle. If it wasn’t so dangerous, he’d pop back into hell to ask the crystals for his true date of birth, but since that wasn’t a possibility, Henry relied mostly on when his aura felt like it was going through a change. 

The closest he was able to estimate his birthday was sometime in the human’s month of June. 

It was March. He had less than three months to live. 

If he thought he’d been feeling crappy last year, it was nothing compared to now. His aura ached and his body hurt and a deeply instinctual part of him desperately wanted to give in and find a nice human soul to feast upon. 

The impulse was becoming harder to ignore, but he’d discovered that it was easier when he was around children. Adults would give him more power, after al, and would be easier to justify the destruction of. 

So there Henry was, sitting on a swing, idly pushing himself with his toes. He knew he looked sickly and didn’t mind how everyone kept their distance. Interaction was getting harder these days, with how tired he always was.

“Hey,” a child’s voice said from over his shoulder.

Henry turned to look at the stranger and immediately felt his aura latch onto something foreign. 

What was happening? Was this boy— who looked to be about his age, with messy black hair and mischievous green eyes— not human? 

His aura seemed to nearly sigh in relief as the ache that pierced it began to ease. But that wasn’t possible. Henry wasn’t eating this kid’s soul, so what was he feeding on?

With the lightest, gentlest touch, he nudged a tendril of his aura against the boy. 

_Oh_. 

The reason demons needed souls was because their auras weren’t capable of producing the paradoxical mix of bright life and chaotic death. Mortals were in a constant state of growth and decay, and that’s what demons fed on, sort of like how some people needed to take vitamins or supplements— their bodies just weren’t capable of producing what they required.

Henry’d never met a human whose soul positively _radiated_ that life and chaos and death, so much so that merely being in the boy’s presence was recharging his aura, so to speak. It simply wasn’t possible— there had to be something he was missing, some fact he didn’t know. But whatever it was, if there was anything at all, it didn’t stop him from feeling infinitely better.

“Well, I was gonna ask if you were all right, but now you don’t look like one breath away from fallin’ over,” the boy said cheerfully. He plopped down on the swing next to Henry’s. “I’m Joey. What’s your name?”

Staring at him in wonder, Henry smiled. Even deeper than the initial life-giving impression he’d received from Joey, something else simmered in the boy’s soul, calling to him. A future, perhaps, as bright as life itself. 

“I’m Henry,” he said. “I just moved here.” 

• • • • •

By the end of the day, Henry had a new best friend. Even if Joey hadn’t given him, quite literally, new life, he’d still want to spend the rest of his days playing with him. The way Joey acted, the way he saw the world, the way he treated Henry— it was new and different and wonderful. 

There was a young couple that had moved in just down the street from Joey’s house in the neighborhood not far from the park where they’d met. 

Henry could feel how desperately they wanted a child of their own, though they’d never be able to conceive one together. It wasn’t hard to weave some new memories for them, fueling his magick with their remarkably pure desire. 

When the sun dawned the next morning, Henry had a home and a family, and his new parents had a son. 

If Henry had thought he knew human kindness and love before, it was scraps compared to what he found in the life he’d begun for himself. And more than that, he made friends, had people in their little town who recognized his face and smiled at his presence, neighbors who cheerfully waved when they saw him walking down the street.

As a whole, it was an experience he’d never had before, not even since coming to earth, and with it came a promise of such wonderful things, and it was safe to say— Aztrayos rather fell in love with it.

**Author's Note:**

> So there you go! How Henry got to where he is now. And for anyone thinking that Henry doesn’t really sound much like a child when he speaks, that was intentional. I don’t think demons really had much of a chance to be or act like kids, and their auras would have made them mature differently from humans. 
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you thought, if you have any questions, stuff like that. ~~And I hope you guys liked the Devil, because there’s another story with him in it coming up.~~
> 
> See [my demon!Henry tag](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com/tagged/demon%21Henry) on tumblr for more demon!Henry stuff beyond what I have on here.


End file.
